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LEBANON, ME - Volunteers with the Lebanon Rescue Department have spent the past week beautifying the station, while also saving over $2,000.

The central rescue station, located at Blaisdell Corners at 1524 Carl Broggi Highway, hasn’t had the exterior painted in at least ten years and the paint was falling off and missing in several places. The department had a few contractors come over and said to repaint the entire exterior of the large station would be about $2,300. Since the station maintenance part of the budget is only $2,000 annually for the whole building, the department explored other options. During a recent officers meeting, the officers suggested that we hold a work detail and do it ourselves.

“Welch’s Hardware and Lumber in East Lebanon was very generous and gave us a great deal on paint and supplies. They have always treated us very well there and it is nice to have a community business get involved with making the community a better place. The staff at Welch’s worked hard to get the supplies ready for this week and we appreciate all the support that they have shown us.” Chief Samantha Cole added.

Crews worked throughout the week striping the old paint and power washing the station. This morning, crews assembled at the station and started taping the doors and windows, while other volunteers painted. By 5pm, the entire building sported its new blue paint.

“We would also like to thank Batchelder Tractor Sales, located across from the Rescue Station, for a donation that was used to purchase food and water for the volunteers who worked at the station today. We had a BBQ with hamburgers and chips for the members and lots of cold water to thank the volunteers for their giving up time during this gorgeous holiday weekend. Batchelder Sales has always been a big supporter of the department and we thank them for their continued support.” Chief Samantha Cole added.

“We had residents stop and say the building looked very nice. I cannot thank the volunteers enough for giving up part of their holiday weekend to help make the station look better. The volunteers donated about 86 manpower hours during the week and today to get the building ready and to paint it. The best part is we were able to paint the outside for about $300 and saved over $2,000 from what it was going to cost us.” Chief Samantha Cole added.

The building has had much maintenance completed in the past few years. New paint throughout the entire inside of the building, a new main entrance door, several new windows on the first and second floor have been installed, a new medical supplies room has been built, electrical issues have been fixed, new emergency lighting has been installed and a new generator is currently being purchased. The volunteers have done all of the work inside and outside and saved thousands of dollars by donating the time. In all, over 350 manpower hours have been donated cleaning up the station in the past 2 years.

The next project is adding a sign to the front of the station for the Rescue Department, adding a street side sign to announce upcoming community events, planting a small lawn and flower garden to beautify the front of the building and cleaning up dead trees on the side of the station. We will be working with local businesses to try to get equipment and loam to start on the grass and garden area. We also want to replace the flag pole that has been rusted and out of service for more than ten years.

The rescue took over the maintenance of the station in 2002, when the town purchased its first ambulance and the rescue department started transporting patients. Since then, the department has been working on fixing many problems with the station.

The station is operated and maintained by the rescue department, but serves as a public safety building for many agencies. The towns emergency operations center and emergency management agency is located at the facility. The fire department stores a forestry truck and fire engine at the facility and most recently the York County Sheriff’s Department opened a sheriff substation at the station to allow sheriff patrol deputies to stay in the community and do mandatory paperwork and make phone calls without going back to their main office in Alfred.

The best part of today is the volunteers all had a great time and we saved over $2,000 by volunteering to do it ourselves. I am very proud of all the hard work that these volunteers do daily, not only by responding to nearly 700 emergency calls a year, but by volunteering over 14,000 manpower hours a year serving the community with community service projects as well. I am very proud to lead such a dedicated group of volunteers.” Chief Samantha Cole added.

“The volunteers usually complete several community service projects a year, like winterizing seniors homes, collecting toys for tots and coats for kids, helping install handicap ramps at houses and more. This time we decided to work on our “second home”, the rescue station where we spend so much time with our extended family” Chief Cole added. “They take pride in their work and their station and have brought it a long way in the past few years.”

The volunteers will be working over the next week finishing some trim work and painting the trim.

Assisting in the exterior painting detail was : Chief Samantha Cole, Assistant Chief Jason Cole, Captain Stu Morrison, Captain Alan Therrien, Lieutenant Diane Elliott, Lieutenant Ryan Therrien, Rick Elliott, Seth Bougie, CJ Deshaies , Kirk Gagnon and former member who was up visiting while on military leave, Jake Greenlaw.